NATURAL ENGAGEMENTS AND ECOLOGICAL AESTHETICS ...

such as chunda (Bactris gasipaes, Arecaceae), pacai (Inga edulis, Fabaceae-Mimosoideae), and
patas (Theobroma bicolor, Sterculiaceae) and to hunt the wild animals that are attracted to them,
the game masters draw on the resources of their “fallows” to feed their own “pets.” For exam-
ple, when the Runa find peccaries eating the fallen fruits of the huapa tree (Virola spp.,
Myristicaceae) this is because the game masters have released these “pigs” from their pens
(cural) into their “fallows” to forage.
On one occasion when I was staying with Ventura and his family, I caught a brief glimpse
of how the Runa seem to experience the correspondence between the wild animals they see and
hunt in the forest and the underlying domestic nature of these same beings, as seen by the game
masters. I had gone out to the forest with Ventura to collect plants. After a few hours, as we
turned home, it began to drizzle. Ventura heard something and ran off up the trail, telling me to
stay back and keep quiet. After a few moments a peccary approached on the trail from behind
me. I assumed that it had not detected me because of the rain. When it finally did see me, it froze.
We both stood there staring at each other for several moments before I flinched and it ran off.
People with whom I discussed this incident explained that the peccary had approached me and
not the hunter because I was unarmed, and therefore unthreatening to it (see Chapter Nine).
That evening I dreamt that I had a shotgun in hand near a muddy pig sty in what looked
like one of the deforested colonist ranches that border Ávila territory to the east, toward Loreto.
Suddenly, a young collared peccary entered the pen and began running around. I was unable to
fire a shot at it because there were several Ávila school children inside the pen as well. Finally,
the peccary approached me. It was staring at me from no more than an arm’s length away on the
other side of the fence. At that moment I felt an ineffable sense of empathy with this creature.
Nevertheless, I knew I had to shoot it. However, the gun began to have mechanical problems and
I was unable to operate it. I finally fired off a shot at point blank range that entered the neck of
the pig and killed it instantly. I then picked up the pig’s limp body and went back to Ventura’s
house, proud that I would have plenty of meat to be able to distribute.
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